A Hundred Thousand Things To See
by RoxieFlash
Summary: A collection of Doctor/Rose drabbles.
1. Colorblind

"You mean there's colors I can't see?"

The Doctor pauses in his explanation of the dancing lights of Praxis VI.

"Course there are," he gives her a look like she's just drooled on her shirt. "Humans only have three different kinds of cone cells; most species have at least four. Time Lords have fifteen."

She doesn't know what cone cells are, or what they have to do with why he seems so much more enthralled by the lights than she is. But when she leans back into the smell of leather and the steady rhythm of double heartbeats, she's finds she doesn't care. The column of his throat as he tilts his head to the stars is entertainment enough.

After a few moments, she slips her arm around his waist.

"There's things you can't see too, you know."


	2. All the Right Signals

On the day Jimmy leaves her, Rose flops on the bed and switches on the telly. She flips through all the channels twice before shivering and getting to her feet; there's no proper heating in the bedsit, and Jimmy said he'd be home by nine. What's taking him so long? While rummaging around for something warm to wear, she happens across his leather jacket, and smiles. He'd never leave it just lying about - always come back to get it, wouldn't he?

She falls asleep to the smell of leather and a BBC2 documentary on the depths of outer space.


	3. Benediction

Rain tears through the leafy canopy outside, making soft clinking noises against the glass. The rumbling, ominous sky has turned all the light to grey, casting Rose in muted colors, her hand pressed flat against the glass as she watches the rain, and the Doctor watches her.

She's quiet, today, and that's all right, because even if it's not his default setting, anything is all right, as long as it's with her. He slips his arm around her waist, draws her back against his chest, and she is warm and soft against his arm; he buries his face in hair that smells like applegrass and presses a soft kiss to the crown of her head, to her temple, and finally the shell of her ear.

He asked her once, and has asked her every day since, just to hear her say it. All the things that should scare him about this, don't. Oh, it's not a petty question of age or species or anything like that. No, the thing that has settled in his heart, the thing that leaves him breathless, as though he's standing on the edge of the galaxy's highest precipice, is that when the word falls from her lips, _he believes her_.

"How long are you going to stay with me?" he mumbles, hand slipping underneath her shirt to stroke the smooth, warm skin of her stomach.

He waits for the answer to change. Their forever is an impossible thing. But she is an impossible creature, and when she twists around in his arms and lays her cheekbone against his, curling her arms around his waist and beneath his jacket, his throat tightens as he gathers her close. He's lost the ability to believe in impossible.

"Forever."


	4. On One Condition

"Satellite Five."

"Rose -"

"How's about Canary Wharf?"

He's struck, just then, by the oddest sensation of relief. They've spent so long apart, become such different people, that such a little thing - her Estate upbringing complete with errant_ s_ sounds and_ v_ instead of_ th_ - is such a comfort, just now. Still his pink and yellow girl, underneath all the hardness and leather.

He wonders if this is what it was like, talking to him, back then.

The question that hangs in the air between them also presses into his palm, shoved into the pocket of his coat pocket. It's in the shape of a red velvet box, a small square biting into his large hand. Idly he flips it open and then shut again, trying to find just the right words to reassure her.

She hasn't said no yet. There is that.

"I just -"

"How's about three months ago?" she says softly, crossing her arms over her chest, eyes boring into his.

Ah. Yes. That.

He could choose to be angry. It's not entirely fair, because this body, this incarnation, didn't choose to leave Rose alone on a beach in Norway. He had, in fact, done the opposite, barely restrained himself from kissing her out of her senses while his other self piloted the TARDIS away. But not once - not since _he's not you_ - has Rose differentiated between the two of them. Taking a few of the punches for his other self's decisions are a small price to pay for her unwavering faith that despite his single heart, he is still the Doctor.

Besides, if he'd been the one with two hearts - the decision would've been the same.

"All those times," he begins. His voice is low, rough. "I thought - you offer your life up so quickly. Your life - the most precious thing in the universe to me. I had spares, Rose. You didn't."

"And now? How do I know, Doctor? How do I know you aren't going to just up and decide what's best for me again? Because if -" Rose stopped, took a deep breath. She let her arms fall to her sides. "S'not gonna work that way."

"I swear, Rose. Never again."

Rose gave him a sharp look. The Doctor snapped the small case in his hand shut, and took a deep breath. Maybe this hadn't been such a good idea, after all.

Then, very suddenly, Rose was in his space. Not that they'd ever had much by the way of physical boundaries in the first place, but hard-eyed Rose Tyler wearing her mother's sternest expression was not something the Doctor was quite used to. He took an involuntary step backwards and hit the wall of Rose's flat.

"I want, you daft alien," she huffed. "For you to get one thing. One thing, you got it? You listen because I'm only sayin' this once."

"You can send me away all you want. You can record all the misty-eyed Emergency Programmes you want when you think I'm asleep, but understand, Doctor. It doesn't matter where you are. It doesn't matter what you think you're doin' to protect me."

"I am always coming back, do you understand? Cause there's no way I'm havin' any fantastic life if you aren't there."

She's still shaking like she might slap him. The Doctor stops, takes several breaths, and then does the only thing he knows to do.

He removes the box from his pocket, flips it open, and eyes wide, offers it to her.

A few moments later, he watches her left hand snake it's way up his chest and around his neck for a hug, newly adorned with very human proof that they belong to each other. He buries his face in hair that smells like applegrass and tries not to ache with the freedom of everything he has that he doesn't deserve.


	5. Three Little Words

"I love you."

Rose literally drops what she's holding - a glass figurine that glows a faint blue - and the resultant crash echoes throughout the marble hallway where they are currently trying to keep very quiet. It takes him a moment to realize that it's because he's never actually said the words out loud. Well…not _out loud, _out loud, where other people can hear him.

Other people, like his not-quite-mother-in-law, who is currently plastered against the marble wall behind Rose, looking as though the thing she'd like most in the world would be to nail the Doctor to the nearest wall by his nether regions. It isn't his fault that nobody told him Jackie was in the Tea Room with Rose before he decided that Rose just _had _to see the glass seas of Firaxis IX. It most definitely was not his fault that they landed, unfortunately, in the middle of the Prime Minister's Inauguration Ball (Angry Rose was somewhere near the top of his Dangerously Distracting Rose Tyler Moments list - she flushed such a delightful shade of pink when she was telling him off) and it was _absolutely _not his fault that the Prime Minister had taken one look at Jackie and decided that she would be Firaxis' next First Lady. And the thing that was completely, utterly not his fault - so out of control that he hadn't been able to keep himself quiet when he saw it - was the fact that when the Doctor, faced with a confiscated TARDIS and a kidnapped Jackie Tyler and no time to even stop for a snack, Rose Tyler provided him with both a simple, diplomatic solution to the problem, and a banana.

Clever Rose was absolutely, most definitely Dangerously Distracting Rose Tyler Moment #1.

"Oh you two're just precious, you are," Jackie hisses. The effect is rather comical, coming from a woman trussed up in the traditional wedding garb of the sharklike Firaxans, all fishnets and purple body paint. "Can we get a move on?"

Rose opens her mouth to speak, then closes it again. Around her feet the shattered bits of the glass figurine are humming softly, and the blue glow rolls like fog around their feet. Something in the distant part of the Doctor's mind reminds him that all Firaxan art contains a specialized chemical compound that reacts to the owner's genetic material when touched.

A chemical burglar alarm.

The Doctor looks at Rose. "Now?" she says, and the resemblance between her and her purple-fishnetted mother is striking. He decides never, ever to tell her that.

"All time an' space, and you say it _now? _In front of my _mum?"_

The fog at their feet is huge, grey aliens are most definitely sending their biggest, baddest guards with the scariest teeth to come and punish them for art theft or Jackie theft or whatever it is they're doing. It should all be very intimidating, but standing there, in the midst of all that chaos, all the Doctor can manage to feel is a deep, abiding sense of _gratitude. _It turns and twists in his stomach in the best way, and he can't keep a laugh from bubbling up. Jackie and Rose are looking at him with twin expressions of _what-now-you-bloody-alien. _

Well. Diplomacy is right out. The TARDIS can't be far. Grinning, he leans over, snatches Rose's hand, and waggles his eyebrows at Jackie.

"Run!"


	6. Breathe You In

Almost two months have passed since Christmas and the destruction of the Daleks and Bad Wolf, and he almost thinks things are getting back to normal. He coaxes a smile from her at every opportunity, and it's so much easier, now, like some invisible barrier between them has been lifted, and all the things he wanted to say, once, tumble easily from his lips where before he could only widen the distance further.

The headiness of that new closeness makes him dizzy, and that's why he almost misses it. Almost misses the way she slips away, one afternoon, while he's busy researching the history of Firaxis XI's monarchy. He doesn't notice her absence for hours and hours, until he's hurrying through corridors, checking every room and closet, each step becoming more and more hurried as she just refuses to turn up. They're in the Time Vortex; there isn't any possible way she could have simply left the TARDIS.

When he finally finds her, it's in one of the old maintenance rooms. Not a necessary fixture, just a little hallway, really, connecting the environmental controls to the ship's unnecessarily large cargo floor. It had once been a favorite haunt of his, to go and think when something became particularly overwhelming. Rose called it brooding, and always managed to draw him out of it, and after a while he'd begun to disappear there just so she'd come and find him.

The first thing he notices is that she's been crying; messy black streaks track her face and she trembles pitifully with her back turned to him. Even before this body that particular sight always paralyzed him; now it's practically unbearable. He's halfway to her when he realizes that she's draped in a quite old and battered leather jacket. The next few steps are slower, more deliberate, as he tries to figure out the best way to approach this. Not just any regular heartbreak, this.

Slowly, softly, he reaches up to wipe the traces of mascara from her face. He remains quiet - fond as he is of words in this body, that might still be foreign to her. So as she stands in front of him, looking beautiful and brave as she does her best to seem unaffected, he draws her to his chest and slips his arms underneath the jacket, pressing her flat against his chest. He presses a kiss to her forehead, feels her burrow into his chest, feels her press her ear to it like she's listening.

After a few long moments, he leans down to whisper. It's a longer lean than it used to be - this fellow he is now, this fellow who feels more like him than any him ever has - brushes a thumb across the shell of Rose Tyler's ear, and in a voice drifting just barely towards Northern, says, "I'm so glad I met you."

The teary smile he receives in return is the most precious gift he could've asked for.

"Me, too."


	7. Signals

Shouldn't bother him. It's him she's carrying around, after all - his watch, his jumper (the maroon one) and his leather jacket. It's his battered copy of The Signalman she's reading. It had been so simple then - love Rose Tyler, save the world, go for chips. His mind flashes to shattering mirrors and French courtesans and the part of him still the man in leather recoils.

He sits, and she scoots over, maybe-forgiveness in her eyes, as he picks up the book and reads to her in a barely- Northern accent until she falls asleep.


	8. Different Ground

A cool wind pulls at his coat as he steps out of the TARDIS, his hand held out to her as she steps, for the first time since their reunion, onto the grass of a new world. The air is sweet, smelling vaguely of cinnamon - she turns to him, and smiles. This one is new - slow blooming and sweet, and for a moment he forgets to breathe as her hand slips underneath his coat, underneath his suit jacket, fingers curling into his back. "Oh, this," she breathes, warm against his side. "I love it."


	9. In Translation

There's a new girl - petite, with wide blue eyes, and the Doctor is very excited about it. He's speaking very fast and not at all in English - Rose has heard enough to know that he's speaking his own language, that he's thinking faster than the TARDIS can translate. She recognizes a few phrases that he's taught her - home and TARDIS and where - but she doesn't actually strain to listen until she hears the syllables of her own name, and then she realizes that the girl is talking -back-.

Unrepentant tears on his cheeks, he can't seem to sit still - making wild, gesturing motions, darting forward to hug the girl, then back to the rapidfire, melodic speech only occasionally punctuated with words she understands. Rose almost excuses herself when the Doctor's hand is suddenly in her own, and that must have done something, because now she can understand. He's winded, his voice low and reverent as he pulls Rose forward. "This is her, Susan," he says, stroking her thumb. "My Rose."


	10. Solid Ground

His feet carry him automatically through the familiar setting of the Powell Estate; the dirty playground, scattered with litter, the graffiti defacing the walls (Rassilon,*those words* make his chest ache), and the bicycle rack where he chained her Christmas present, the year he was Father Christmas. It's crawling with people - people who don't know, or don't care, what potential this place holds.

He loves Amelia, and he loves Rory, but there are some days when he just *can't*. He can't watch them dance around the console, can't listen to Amy's teasing flirtations or the relief that comes with the end of a two-thousand year separation behind Rory's eyes. It isn't their fault, his Ponds, but some days, being with them makes him more alone than he is on his own.

And that's how he finds himself here, scrambling for purchase on the only steady ground he knows. Taking a deep breath, straightening his bow-tie, the Doctor lifts his hand to knock on the door, and a genuine smile breaks out over his face when a blonde woman in a pink velour tracksuit answers the door.

"Hello, Mrs. Tyler, I'm Professor Smith. I understand Rose is having trouble with exponents?"


	11. Dereliction of Duty

"TONY!"

The state of the kitchen was, to be quite honest, unmentionable. There was a bit of eggshell underneath Jackie's boot, and it looked like the rest of the carton had been splattered against the walls. The container of chocolate chips she usually kept on the highest shelf were tipped over, spilling out everywhere, and the entire room was covered with a thin layer of flour.

"John Anthony Tyler, you shift this instant or so help me…"

She was expecting a tiny head to poke out from behind the kitchen island, or else to hear a giggle from behind the curtains. What Jackie didn't expect was for her son to emerge, in his perfectly crisp and clean school uniform, from the hallway opposite the kitchen.

"Mum -"

"What in the blazes were you doing in my kitchen? It isn't half wrecked in there!"

"Mum," Tony said in a flat, matter of fact tone. "I've been in my room *all day*."

Tony looked pointedly at the kitchen.

Where a particularly mad head of hair, disguised somewhat by the flour coating it, was sticking out from behind the kitchen island. Jackie's eyes narrowed as a couple of key details came into focus; a small hand with the glint of a wedding ring, buried in the Doctor's hair, the Doctor's suit jacket in a heap on the floor, and a pink t-shirt covered in flour beside it. Oh, oh they were so, so, gonna get it…

"Rose, I think we'd better -"

"Oh yeah. Definitely."

"Run!"


	12. Many Happy Returns

It's been almost six months since Jimmy left and Rose is doing fine. She's got mum, and good friends, and she thinks Mickey might want to give it a go again, even if she doesn't deserve him. Tonight's her birthday, but it's nothing special - doesn't feel like it, because she's already gotten her heart broken, she's already lived on her own, she's already struggled to pay the bills - what's eighteen but just another reminder that she's screwed up her life before it even got started? She doesn't want to celebrate, doesn't want to remember how she turned seventeen on the back of a motorcycle, or drinking cheap wine bundled in a leather jacket that smelled like cigarettes.

Blimey, we've got to cheer you up, Shareen blusters, and while Rose complains Shareen goes through her closet and finds the perfect outfit. She drags Rose out to the pub and they're all there, all of her friends and Mum and Mickey (her cheeks turn pink and he hugs her a little closer than normal), and she remembers, after a few drinks, that she used to like this, that she _loves_ this, people and laughter and music.

She and Shareen are laughing over an old joke when she bumps into him. Her first thought is that he looks like he's punched someone's grandpa and taken his clothes, all tweed jacket and bow-tie. She covers her mouth and giggles at her own joke, only just managing to choke out, "Hello."

"Hello," he says with wide eyes, as though he had been expecting her eyes to pass right through him. After a moment the wide-eyed look fades into something softer, and he smiles. It's a nice smile, she thinks.

"Would the birthday girl," he says, eyes twinkling. "Do me the honor of a dance?"

Not a stranger, then. Must've been one of Shareen's blokes, someone she called last minute to make a night at the pub look more like a party. Whoever he is, Rose decides instantly that she likes him as she slides into his arms, and they dance.

It isn't any sort of dance that she's used to. There are others clumsily bumping and grinding against each other, while the odd stranger leads her in some sort of graceful ballroom dance. She laughs, delighted, as he spins her and then dips her in his arms, trusting instantly that he wouldn't let her fall.

When he brings her back to her feet, Mickey is glaring at them, and Rose kisses the stranger on the cheek just to see him bristle. Strangely, Rose's new friend looks like she's just given him the crown jewels, fingers brushing lightly where her mouth had touched him.

"Happy Birthday, Rose Tyler," he tells her, and when she goes looking for him after giving Mickey a dance or two, he's gone.


	13. Pretend

No, Rory," says Amy, rolling her eyes. "The tie is *wrong*. It's not stripey, it's swirly." She grabs the tie - the one he wore to his Aunt Karen's wedding - and attacks it viciously with a paint marker. He doesn't think his mum will like that very much, but Amy's frowns are so much worse than Mum's - they make his stomach squirm and squirm until she smiles again. Sighing, he lets Amy draw curlycues on his good tie and stares out the window, watching the rain fall, until something occurs to him.

He's much shorter than Amy, and his feet stick out of the box when he leans in to rummage through it. After a few moments he emerges from Amy's dress-up box with a princess dress that's (sort-of) the right color, and a handful of golden tinsel left over from the dress-up box's tenure as storage for Christmas decorations. He holds the dress out to her for inspection, and she raises one bright red eyebrow.

"An' what's that supposed to be?"

He scrambles for an answer. The girl is a half-remembered dream, and he doesn't think about it much because dreams are just dreams - except this one. When he thinks about this one he gets all filled up with a warm tingly feeling down to his toes, like being in the safest place in the world.

"She's my friend," he says lamely. "Like your friend. She said she'd keep me safe."

Amy looks unimpressed.

"She can turn into a wolf."

"Ooooh," says Amy, and her eyes light up. She grins, and the squirmy feeling in Rory's stomach melts into something nice and warm as she lets him artfully arrange the golden tinsel over her hair. When she puts on the dress the effect is complete; she holds out her hand.

"Let's go outside, so the Doctor and…what's my name?"

"Rose," he says, grabbing her hand. "Your name is Rose."


	14. Take Me Back

It's been a long day, saving gingers in wedding dresses so that planet Earth gets one more spin around the sun. And he's afraid - so afraid - that he'll turn his gaze inwards and find it doesn't satisfy him like it used to, just because this Earth isn't Rose Tyler's Earth, any more. Now that he's alone the TARDIS still wails with grief in his mind, and sinking onto the plush carpet of Rose Tyler's bedroom he joins Her, pressing a perfume-soaked purple t-shirt into his mouth to muffle the sound.


	15. Artistic Integrity

_NinexRose, art student AU_

He was the last person she expected to see.

They've always been friends - he's an Navy mate of her brother's, and to be honest, their banter has always toed the line between flirting and obscene, just to see all the colors it makes Jack turn.

"Rose Tyler," she can still hear that warm Northern burr, making warmth pool in her stomach and her toes curl. "Bet you blush first."

"Bet you I don't."

As he raises his eyes to pin her in place, letting the sheet drop, her pencils and paper are forgotten. He wins.


	16. Fallen

_TenxRose, fantasy AU_

He doesn't realize it's her until it's too late.

Golden curls spilling out from underneath a helm spattered with blood, her ragged breathing fills his ears and drowns out the sounds of battle around them.

"Hello," she rasps.

He can't answer her, he can't form words because it's his sword that raked through her belly, his actions that stained his tunic with her blood, and he knew, he _knew_ he never should have taken up arms in this wretched war, because look what it's done to them.

Instead, he yanks off his gauntlet and prays that the gods bless whatever small amount of healing magic he remembers.


	17. Fatal Attraction

_TenxRose, spy AU_

One of these days it's going to get them killed.

It's the slit of her ballgown, a pale, creamy thigh just barely visible - it's her hand, playing with his tie as she charms her way into the good graces of the ambassador, her hand adorned with a wedding ring he didn't give her, the soft, raspy sigh she gives as he rakes his fingernails down her bare back during dinner.

One of these days, he thinks as he hauls her leg up around his waist, stifling her whimpers with his tongue, this is going to get them killed. But not today.


	18. In the Dark

_high school, student/teacher AU_

"Leave her alone," he says, his hands full of Koschei's shirt - his grip is white knuckled and shaking and he doesn't know whether or not it's from a need to keep his colleague in place, or to keep himself from doing actual physical harm.

"And what are you going to do?" he purrs. "I know your secret."

"We aren't…I haven't…for God's sake, Koschei, we're _revising _for her _exams._ "

Koschei lets a slow grin touch his lips; he leans in, straining against the Doctor's fists to whisper in his ear. "But for how long?"

The Doctor releases him immediately, face flaming, furious, storming out the door and whipping out his cell phone to offer her a ride home, because there's no way she's walking in the dark, tonight. As he punches the _one_ on his speed dial, he tries not to think about last night - about her beautiful smile, her _utterly entrancing_ mind, and how very right the other man had almost been.


	19. Intoxicating

_TenxRose, speakeasy AU_

He runs his finger along the badge in his pocket, tapping it in time to the rhythm of the music her hips are swaying to as she serves her drinks.

"Get you a drink, mister?"

He has more than enough evidence to shut this place down, and perhaps enough to put her away, but all the blacks and the whites, the shoulds and should-nots, they don't form properly around her, shades of grey shimmering like a halo around full, red lips and and the slip of a pink tongue between her teeth.

"No, no drink for me, thanks," he says, taking his hand out of his pocket and quirking an eyebrow. "But I'll have a dance."


	20. Bait and Switch

"Oh, that's very serious, that is," said the Doctor, nodding as a green-skinned alien read off a list of reasons why the Doctor and Rose were currently being incarcerated.

"Breaking and entering, vandalism, seasonally inappropriate clothing -"

"Oi!" said the Doctor. "There is nothing wrong with my jacket!"

Rose, behind him, covered her mouth with her hand to stifle a giggle.

Another alien, bigger than the first, was pulling out an alarming set of heavy iron manacles.

" - violation of curfew, possession of non-certified imported foodstuffs - "

"Bananas are perfectly good!"

" - noise pollution, parking in a non-parking zone, and fraternizing with a female after hours. "

"You're right, I'm a very bad man," said the Doctor with a manic grin. "Lock me up then, throw away the key. Once kidnapped a schoolteacher and got her turned into an Aztec goddess! And there was that whole nasty business with the duel to the death. And oh! Got meself engaged by accident as well. A little piece of advice - never offer an Aztec hot chocolate - they've got a funny custom or two that goes along with it, y'see -"

"Silence!"

The Doctor looked at the alien with concentrated interest.

"For the record, you will state your name."

"Oh, me? I'm the Doctor."

"And the girl?"

"Oh that's Rose Tyler! Brilliant! Take only the best, me. Gorgeous, dead clever, and did I mention while I was talking she stole your gun?"


	21. Professional Jealousy

_TenxRose, writers AU_

They meet at a signing, not because he's ever read her books, but because it was supposed to be _his_ signing, but he was cancelled last minute in favor of the media darling who's raking in millions with a hit YA-series.

He tries to tell himself he isn't bitter, at home among his piles of takeout boxes, half-drunk mugs of coffee and rejected manuscripts, tries to tell himself that it doesn't matter that beginner's luck made her rich while it only left him a one-hit wonder, his only published novel fading into obscurity and leaving him without much of a career and very, very broke.

So to say it's a surprise when she calls is an understatement, her voice strangely timid, saying there's a dinner she's having this Friday, and wouldn't he like to come? He - bewildered - agrees, but shows up in a ratty Beatles' t-shirt and uncombed hair in silent protest.

It's only when he finds a battered copy of _A Journal of Impossible Things_ on her bookshelf that an inexplicable warmth spreads through his chest and he decides, maybe, that he's been a bit of an arse, and maybe she'd like to have coffee?


	22. The Blurry Line

_TenxRose, mental hospital AU_

"I'm not crazy," a sob wrenches from his mouth, and he grabs her wrist, desperate. "I'm not."

She's been told, over and over again, not to let them get to her, that every thing they say is just tied up in the intricate fantasy world they create for themselves, and her duty as a caretaker means drawing a firm line between fantasy and reality.

But as his hand slides up to touch her face and her eyes flutter shut, trying to shut out earnest brown eyes and the electric trail of his fingertips, she can feel the line blurring.

"Rose," he gasps out, and his forehead is touching hers, and _how does he know her name? _"You have to believe me. You're the only person in the whole universe I can trust."


	23. The End of the Tunnel

_NinexRose, supermarket AU_

He's not used to doing the shopping on his own, not since they died.

It's a funny business, picking out ingredients and turning them into meal, making sure he doesn't come home with twelve bags full of groceries and nothing in the house to eat, and not the first time, or the third time out, but weeks and weeks after the accident, he finds himself standing in the middle an aisle holding a package of his daughter's favorite biscuits and trying not to fall apart.

He doesn't expect her, almost snaps at her, when she offers a sunny smile and asks him if he needs help with anything, but every week after he shows up to shove a list in her hands and pretend she isn't the only light he can see, anymore.


	24. Buried Treasure

_TenxRose, archaeologist AU_

"That, Rose Tyler," says the Doctor. "Is my hat."

It's really not fair, that below him are halls filled with gold and jewels and possibly booby-traps and definitely danger, and the most alluring thing to him now is a nineteen-year-old girl looking inconsiderately adorable in a stolen helmet.

He had absolutely, definitely one hundred percent against being assigned an assistant, but right now, for the life of him, watching her eyes grow wide as she steps into history, he can't remember why.

She can keep the helmet, he thinks as he waggles his eyebrows and grabs her hand. He's always walked a little bit on the wild side.

"Run!"


	25. By the Seashore

_ElevenxRose, merperson AU_

The ocean has always been where her heart is.

Mum moved here when she was five, a fresh new start after Dad died, and she used to imagine, when she came trodding down to the beach with her floaters and her pail and shovel that she a friend who would peak up from underneath the waves.

Everything is ruined now - the apartment's gone in a fire, and Mum doesn't have any money, and she's in the hospital besides. Jimmy's run off and left her with his own bills to pay, and she can't see any way out.

She's startled from her tears when a cold, wet hand reaches up from the pier to wipe her cheeks, a familiar and utterly real pair of eyes - green like the ocean - peeking, concerned, over the dock.


	26. Come What May

_ElevenxRose, merperson AU pt II_

Their hands twine together like sea and shore, and he presses a kiss to each knuckle, pulling her gently over the edge and into the water.

She goes easily into his arms, cool sea water rushing up to her neck, and she wonders for one wild moment if he'll pull her down, drown her, and she thinks right now that she might welcome it. But he doesn't, instead, keeping her steady with one arm around her waist.

"You're a fairy tale," she says, and his arms are solid and steady, keeping her from being lost to the waves.

"You're _crying,_" he says, as though it's the most terrible thing in the world, and he'd be here, fairy tale or not.


	27. Untouchable

_TenxRose, neighbors AU_

He can't, won't stand to see her cry.

It's more than just her smile, the lovely sight of her sipping tea of a morning, squinty-eyed and grumpy because mornings aren't her favorite time of day - it's more than just the little chats that have turned into long, ambling conversations over the fence, where his knees ache and he really should go inside and get some work done but he'd rather spend the afternoon listening to her laugh and steadily trying to ignore the wedding band on her hand.

He's an honest man, a man who takes vows solemnly and feels himself flush with guilt every time he thinks of her. So when the yelling stops, when he hears Jimmy tear out of the drive, wheels squealing and finds her trying to steady herself and quiet her tears against the back wall, it's more than just infatuation that makes him cup her cheek and quietly kiss the tears away.

It's everything.


	28. Only In Dreams

_TenxRose, neighbors AU pt II_

Because he can, because they're alone in the dark and the cool of his study with nothing but the soft glow of streetlamps cast over them, he slides his fingers into her hair and kisses her until they're gasping.

"If you were mine," he murmurs, low and reverent, kissing her forehead, her bruised cheek, each closed eyelid in turn. "I would shout it to the universe. Every planet, every star, every constellation would know how much I love you."

His voice is growing fevered here in the dark, and she's being carried away with him, however much she promised she wouldn't be - because tomorrow, Jimmy's car will be in the drive, and letting herself believe his fervent words will make it hurt all the more when she has to pretend he's just the man she says hello to when she fetches the paper in the morning.


	29. Out of the Dark

_TenxRose, neighbors AU pt III_

It's the first time he's seen or spoken to her in three weeks, when she appears in the doorway of his classroom, in a white sundress, long blonde hair plaited down her back, the thought of which completely derails his lecture on _The Odyssey. _

It's mid-May and the students are restless anyway; he dismisses class early and watches them file out, some of them throwing him knowing looks. One young man gives him a blatant thumbs up and a wink as they leave, and she giggles.

As soon as the room is cleared he moves to lock the door, and then waits.

"I missed you," he croaks out, and then her hand is on his arm, sliding up to his shoulder, to his face. "Why didn't you…?"

Her kiss doesn't tremble, he discovers as without a word she molds herself to his chest. _He _feels like every inch of him is ready to topple over, shaking from relief, from something else maybe, as he clutches helplessly at her back, trying to pull her as close as spacial limitations will allow.

She spends a full minute teasingly nibbling on his bottom lip, and he's seriously considering the merits of shagging her on his desk when she pulls back, stroking his cheek with her left hand.

She isn't wearing her wedding ring.


	30. Or Forever Hold Your Peace

_ElevenxRose, human AU_

Oh, she's going to _murder_ Shareen for this - she hadn't wanted a bachelorette party, not with the girls from the estate, leastways, because she felt a bit tired and stretched for the kind of partying they did, and would much rather curl up with a documentary on ancient aliens and watch John toss popcorn at the screen with every passing inaccuracy.

She's still not sure it's real, still gets butterflies in her stomach (and she's not sure they're the good kind) when she thinks of Jimmy's challenging smile and the casual way he flipped open the box with the ring inside. The voice in her head (the one that sounds annoyingly like John) tells her that she might want to give this a little more thought.

Someone rolls in a giant cake, obviously fake, and the girls begin to catcall. Rose covers her eyes.

But the cheesy music never starts. Instead, she hears the ripping of paper, and the clearing of a throat, then, peeking through her fingers, instead of a stripper, she sees _him - _braces, bow-tie, and stupidly alarming grin.

Shareen looks gobsmacked.

"Oh hello, everyone, I'm looking for - yes, there she is, lovely- what I'm trying to say is - Rose Tyler, you shouldn't get married."

"Yeah? An why not?"

He grins at her. "I've made a list."


	31. Education

_TenxRose, professors AU_

"Professor," nods Rose.

"Professor," nods the Doctor.

If she straightens her skirt before she heads in to _Criminal Justice 101_, and he uses his thumb to wipe definitely-not-lipstick from the corner of his mouth before _Shakespeare 3030_, then nobody should think anything of it. He's a presumptuous knob. She's an insufferable brat. Everyone knows that their relationship is strictly professional at best; they can barely be in the same room for five minutes without starting World War III.

But _damn_ the sex is good.


	32. In Bed By Nine

_NinexRose, parent/babysitter AU (adult)_

"Rose, this isn't why I - I didn't -"

"I know," she says, with that slow-blooming smile he loves, and his hand slips to her face, thumb brushing over her lips. Then she does something incredibly clever with her mouth and all his effort goes into controlling the shaking of his thighs and trying not to shout her name into the darkness. "But I want to."

He should feel guilty, or embarassed, his daughter in the next room, asleep, but right now all he can do is watch her as the hot, wet warmth of her mouth breaks him apart.


	33. Salvation and Resurrection

_TenxRose, vampire/slayer AU_

He drags them out of the burning sunlight, tends to them, feeds him from his own blood sometimes, and they begin to call him the Doctor.

He gives them a chance, and when they don't take it, he wipes them from the planet, and when his footsteps echo closer they begin to whisper, "a storm is coming."

She wonders if she'll feel again, as she lays her trap - if a thousand years of grey will flush with crimson life from the taste of him on her lips, because kill her or kiss her, there's nothing left in the world that can save her.


	34. In War

_NinexRose, Civil War AU_

"I'll follow you," she says, drenched to the bone and covered in mud. Her ridiculous petticoats are already ragged and brown; he can't imagine the level of noise he'd have on his hands if her mother could see her now. "On foot if I haveta, an' you know I will."

Even now, her little chin raises defiantly in the pouring rain, the drops are dripping down her nose ridiculously, and he wishes he'd never come here, wishes his brother had never moved to this ridiculous place because he can _see it_, and he's enraptured - he can see her storming through the front lines, making cowards of strong men with just a glance of her sharp, dark eyes. She's Athena in a hoop skirt, and he is her hopeless devotee.

"Rose," he begins, but she's suddenly very close, and it stops up his mouth as his eyes lap up the trace of a raindrop over her lip, down her throat, across her chest.

"You're a _doctor." _

"They need doctors in war, Rose."

Her small face is unreadable, and he wishes for a thousand things at once. He wishes for peace, for another time, another place, another planet. He wishes for the taste of the rain on her lips and that he'd never come here, because he knows he'll never deny her anything, and in doing so he's going to get her killed.

"And doctors," she says after a moment. "Need nurses, don't they?"

She slips her hand into his, and he gives in, because he's too selfish to ever give her back.


	35. Liberacorpus

_TenxRose, Harry Potter AU_

"There's…scars," she says, blushing a little as his fingers skim over the now-ragged planes of her stomach, tracing over the letters carved into her skin by men in silver masks.

"I don't care," his voice is shaking, he's shaking, as he wraps her in an old, tattered blue-and-bronze blanket, his mouth darting forward to catch hers at intervals like he just can't help himself. "I thought you were _dead._"

His hand slips around her waist, drawing her gently in his lap, and she realizes after a moment that he's crying.

"They took my wedding ring," she says, nuzzling into his cheek.

"I'll buy you another one," he rasps. "I'll buy you a whole 'nother wedding, if you want."


	36. Human Inefficiencies

"Rose, I think I need medical assistance._" _

His glasses were crooked. She'd put money on him not having slept, either - he was still wearing the pants from yesterday's suit, and a rumpled Beatles' t-shirt she was sure had, until this morning, been more or less a permanent resident of the corner in their bedroom. His brow was furrowed, and like a small child, he thrust his index finger at her for inspection.

"Doctor, that's a paper cut. Happens when you spend too much time flippin' around in books."

"Really? What kind of inefficient dermatological - oh."

Rose grinned at him. "There. Kissed it better."

Later that evening, Rose heard a crash, and then the Doctor calling her from deep inside the library. She took off running, her mobile on the ready just in case the Doctor really _did _need need medical assistance this time - only to find him climbing his way out of a neck-high pile of books. He appeared to have topped a bookshelf.

"Rose," he said, his eyes wide and far too innocent. "I think I have a papercut."

"Where's it hurt?"

He smirked. "Everywhere."


End file.
